Hating Molly Weasley
by breaksforbirds
Summary: "I hate you," says her son. / She barely flinches. "How original."


**Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 12: I Open At the Close**

Position: Seeker for the Harpies

Prompt: Write a dramatic fic about the Weasleys

Word Count (Pages): 1,087

* * *

 **Hating Molly Weasley**

Bill is the first child to tell her he hates her, and it breaks her heart.

"I wanna leave this family." He howls the words as he throws himself to the floor, heels beating against the walls of the kitchen in the Burrow. "I hate you, Mummy. _I hate you._ "

He's four.

She doesn't know where he learned the word "hate." She certainly didn't teach it to him. Charlie, who is barely three, certainly didn't teach it to him, although Charlie mimics like a parrot and will surely begin to repeat the word if Bill says it often enough.

"Bill," she says, bending down in spite of her heavily-pregnant stomach to run a hand over Bill's cheek. "Stop all this fuss. Come, now. You don't hate me."

"I _do._ "

"You love me." The word falls from her lips like a plea. "You do, Bill."

"You cut my hair." Bill's howl has increased in pitch and volume, until he is shrieking like a banshee. "I liked it long!"

"I only trimmed it." She glances at the floor, where chunks of Bill's red curls are heaped into a neat little pile. "I needed to trim your bangs. Please, Bill. You couldn't see."

With a hiccup, Bill gets to his feet and runs out of the kitchen. With a final, "I hate you," thrown over his shoulder, he slams his bedroom door shut. She hears him bawling on the other side, and she puts her face in her hands.

"Comin' through," says three-year-old Charlie from somewhere behind her, and she raises her face from her hands just in time to see him drop of pile of dirt on the floor.

"Charlie!" She struggles to her feet and reaches for her wand. "What are you doing?"

"Makin' mud pies with Daddy." Charlie looks up at her with a toothy grin and a pair of bright blue eyes that make her heart melt. "You wanna help?"

"I want you to clean up this mess." She points at the footprints Charlie has tracked across the floor. "Right now."

Charlie's lower lip trembles. "Don't wanna."

She closes her eyes. "Get Daddy to help you."

"No!"

"Charlie—"

"I hate you."

She lets out a breath as if someone has poked her hard in the stomach.

* * *

Percy doesn't say it until he's six.

"Lights out, Percy," she says, rapping gently on his bedroom door.

"Okay," comes the high-pitched voice from inside, but light still spills out from the crack beneath the door, and so she pops her head inside. Her little bespectacled prince is sitting up in bed with a book nestled between his hands. "Aw, Mum," he says with that sheepish grin that all her children share. "One more chapter?"

"No, Percy."

"Please?"

" _No._ " There is a crash downstairs; Fred and George must be out of bed.

"I'm at such a good part!"

"It's after ten o'clock."

"You let Charlie and Bill stay up."

Another crash. She pinches the bridge of her nose. "You can get up bright and early and read your chapter then."

Percy heaves a sigh as he tucks his bookmark into place. "I hate you."

Her heart twinges as she closes the door. "You don't mean that," she says.

She isn't sure if it's loud enough for him to hear, but he turns off the light either way.

* * *

Fred says it on the same day George does.

"Go to your _room_ ," she says, dragging her giggling sons out of the chicken coop by their ears. "Go this _instant._ "

"No, Mummy!" George has a long scratch—undoubtedly from one of the chicken's talons—down the side of his face, but he's grinning in spite of it. "We're chasin' chickens!"

"How many times have I told you boys not to chase the chickens?"

"Sorry." Fred shrugs his skinny five-year-old shoulders.

"We can't help ourselves," says George.

"We like when they run away." Fred laughs again.

She drags them into the house and gives them a firm little shove toward the staircase. "Go to your room. Do you understand?"

"But we don't _want—_ "

"I don't care!" She's yelling, she's _yelling,_ she always swore she'd never yell, but here she is with five sons and a sixth one on the way and a husband who never seems to come home from the office, and she is outnumbered, she is _drowning_ , she _can't help it—_

"You will sit in your room," she yells, "and you will not come out again until the morning!"

The twins look at each other. One of them lets his jaw drop.

"GO."

They go. "Mummy's mean," George says quietly as they ascend the stairs together.

"I hate her."

"Me, too."

Molly walks into the kitchen and braces her hands against the counter and tries to figure out whether she's fighting back tears or a scream or both.

* * *

By the time Ron says it, she's numb to the whole word.

"You're so unfair!"

"Life is unfair." She points to the breakfast table, where Ron's porridge is growing cold. "Eat."

"You know I hate porridge."

"Then don't eat. I don't care. You'll be starving by lunch time, and then you'll be glad to have porridge."

"I hate you."

She barely flinches. "How original."

* * *

Ginny says it so often that Molly can't even remember the first time.

"I hate you," she says when Molly won't let her jump on the Hogwarts Express with Fred and George.

"I hate you," when Molly makes her wear a hand-me-down dress from her cousin Samantha, whose has a proclivity for pink.

"I hate you," when she isn't allowed to travel alone through the Floo Network.

"I hate you," when they tell her she's getting secondhand books and robes.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," and Molly tries over and over to remind herself that her only daughter _doesn't mean it._

* * *

Arthur comes home from a long day of work to a house that is quiet and devoid of children for the first time in more than a decade.

"Quiet without them, isn't it?" he says as he and his wife sit down for their first dinner alone together since Bill was born.

She nods.

"Less dramatic around here, certainly."

Another nod.

"I love you," he says.

She drops her fork. "What?"

"I said I love you." He smiles. "Always have. Always will."

She takes a deep breath. "I love you, too."

That one word makes the years worth it.


End file.
